Montez Sweat: The Defensive End Exporting American Anxiety to a World Already on Edge By the time Montez Sweat was traded from the Chicago Bears to the Washington Commanders last October, the planet had already endured two years of pandemic, spiraling inflation, and the creeping realization that every smartphone notification might herald either a missile…
The Gladiators of Santa Clara: How a 49ers Game Became a Global Mood Ring By Our Correspondent, still jet-lagged from the last apocalypse SANTA CLARA—Somewhere between the Caspian Sea evaporating and the yen staging a one-currency rebellion, the San Francisco 49ers took the field on Sunday and, for three merciful hours, allowed the planet to…
The Accidental Diplomat: How Case Keenum Became the NFL’s Only Functioning Global Institution By Dave’s Locker Foreign Desk In a world where multilateralism is collapsing faster than a European bank on a Friday afternoon, we have—against all odds—found a rare example of sustained international cooperation: Case Keenum’s passport stamp collection. Yes, the journeyman quarterback best…
The Curious Case of D.J. Moore: How a 190-Pound American Gladiator Quietly Became the Canary in Globalization’s Coal Mine By Matteo “Macabre” Moretti, International Correspondent, Dave’s Locker From the air-conditioned war rooms of NFL analytics departments to the sweat-soaked living rooms of Lagos, Nigeria—where Monday-morning quarterbacks stream games off sketchy websites—D.J. Moore has become an…
The World According to Miles Sanders A dispatch from the global bureau of running backs, currency fluctuations, and existential dread. By the time Miles Sanders ripped off a 42-yard touchdown against the Bears last season, the yen had already slipped to a 34-year low and a container of kimbap in Seoul cost more than a…
CeeDee Lamb and the Global Theater of Catch-and-Release By The Foreign Desk, Dave’s Locker Somewhere between the neon shrine of JerryWorld and the algorithmic bowels of TikTok, CeeDee Lamb—wide-receiver, reluctant fashion influencer, and occasional human piñata for defensive backs—has become the latest export in America’s ongoing experiment: turning kinetic talent into soft power. To the…
Gridiron Geopolitics: How the NFL Standings Quietly Rule the World Order By A. Correspondent, filing from a hotel bar in Singapore that still thinks the Patriots are the bad guys — The NFL’s weekly standings, for the uninitiated, look like a benign spreadsheet of wins, losses, and a few decimal points masquerading as science. But…
Max Brosmer and the Great Global Quarterback Shortage By Our Resident Cynic-at-Large, filing from an airport lounge that still smells of last week’s despair The planet is running out of quarterbacks. Not metaphorical ones—actual 6-foot-something Americans who can fling a leather ellipsoid sixty yards while evading 300-pound men with the ethical flexibility of payday lenders….
Dan Quinn’s Second Life: From Super-Bowl Collapse to Global Gridiron Diplomat By International Desk, Dave’s Locker Atlanta, Georgia—That Dan Quinn is again gainfully employed as an NFL head coach is either a testament to redemption narratives Americans can’t resist or proof that the league’s memory is shorter than a TikTok clip of a cat knocking…
Jeremy McNichols: The Running Back Who Ran All the Way to the End of the Earth (and Found a Job in Doha) If you’d told a 10-year-old Jeremy McNichols in 2005 that his future résumé would one day list stops in Boise, Nashville, Jacksonville, Denver, Atlanta, Tampa, and—why not—Doha, he probably would’ve asked whether the…
The Man Who Guards the Quarterback—And the Fragile Illusion of American Exceptionalism By Diego Serrano, International Desk, Dave’s Locker To the rest of the planet, Lane Johnson is merely the 6’6″, 325-pound right tackle who keeps Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts from becoming a chalk outline on the Lincoln Financial Field turf. But step back—say, to the…
The Gladiators of Inglewood: How the LA Rams Became a Global Parable of Excess By Marco “Gravedigger” Alvarez, Senior Cynic-at-Large LOS ANGELES—In most places on earth, a football team is merely eleven sweaty men and their accountant. Here, the Rams are a $5.4 billion pop-up cathedral whose consecration rites include drone swarms, crypto giveaways, and…
